The works of E. Allen Poe,
now being, for the most part, free or incredibly cheap on the Kindle, have begun to re-captivate me as they did in my yoot. hans Pfall, Legrand, Dupin all call to me from the E-Ink of my Kindle, and i answer their call. Reccomend.
Poe’s fun, but I really prefer reading Kipling…
Having my English degree in Pre-Civil War American literature ( yes, I’ve made OODLES of money with it! ), I can attest to Poe’s ability with words. He is a master at setting a scene and evoking emotion…even if the emotion is overwhelmingly foreboding and negative.
When I worked at Target, I frequently invoked phrases from The Cask of Amontillado, which apparently none of my coworkers ever read. (Even the two or three who claimed to like Poe.)
Being way down the aisles of the stockroom felt like being in a catacomb, and when someone would block my exit (however temporarily) the first thing that always came to mind was, “For the love of God, Montresor!”
No one ever got it, even after I explained it. That’s what I get for being a smart guy in a dumb job.
yeah, I’ve been working on machines that had slow repetitive noises we were trying to identify and screamed ‘It is the beatingh of his hideous heart!!” and nobody but me laughed.
Shame, really. Such a good bit of snark wasted on philistines.
Cultural touchstones are more television oriented this day.
I started reading the Bible originally because of the line in Moby Dick, “Call me Ishmael”. I realized I needed to become familiar with this cultural reference point.
I won’t watch a majority of the trash out there for a cultural reference point.
Reading my young relatives on Facebook shows me how increasingly out of touch I am.
That’s OK.